Austin, TX.  – June 20, 2025  –  Texas’ Fifteenth Court of Appeals ruled that the City of San Antonio must stop the implementation of their program funding out of state travel for abortions. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton brought a lawsuit against the City of San Antonio for establishing a “Reproductive Justice Fund” of $100,000. View the ruling here. Austin City Council has a similar fund that now has a budget allocation of $400,000. Recently, the Texas Legislature passed SB 33 by Senator Donna Campbell (R-San Antonio) that makes it clear that municipalities cannot use taxpayer dollars to fund out of state abortions. Senate Bill 33, will go into effect on September 1, after being signed the governor.

Mary Elizabeth Castle, Director of Government Relations for Texas Values, said:

“The court decision today proves what we already know: the San Antonio piggy bank for abortion tourism is against Texas law. Sending women across state lines to obtain a dangerous procedure that will likely result in two deaths is not healthcare, it is a dangerous waste of taxpayer dollars. I am looking forward to SB 33 going into effect soon and making it even more clear that cities like Austin and San Antonio cannot have abortion tourism funds ”

Texas Values was one of the leading organizations in getting SB 22 the No Taxpayer Dollars to Abortion Providers Law (2019), The Texas Heartbeat Law (2021), and recently SB 33 (2025). Texas Values law and policy team was on the ground during a San Antonio City Council meeting on April 10, 2024 when the city discussed funding out of state travel for abortions. Texas Values has also testified at several meetings over the past 5 years about Austin City Council’s  budget allocation for abortion support services and travel.

Members of Texas Values law and policy team are available for comment. please email Ashley at media@txvalues.org or call/text 737-314-2450 (m).

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About Texas Values

Texas Values is the largest statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to standing for faith, family, and freedom in Texas. More information is available at txvalues.org.

AUSTIN, Texas — For Harrison Barnes, “Home Club” is the Boys & Girls Clubs of Story County in Ames, Iowa. The winters are cold, the population is small and the basketball courts once left much to be desired.

The latter changed in June 2025 after the Club’s $7 million expansion was completed to increase capacity and better serve children in the ninth-largest town in Iowa. Barnes’ name isn’t on that court, but it’s been on several others.

The latest? The outdoor court at the Boys & Girls Home Club on the Sheth Family Campus in Austin, roughly 100 miles Northeast from the San Antonio Spurs’ home at Frost Bank Center.

“This is significantly nicer than anything I had growing up,” Barnes said Wednesday to the Club Kids sitting in clumps awaiting their chance to be the first to play on it. “I hope you guys appreciate that.”

Judging by their smiles, they did.

Shortly after Barnes cut the ribbon to officially open the Harrison and Brittany Barnes Community Fund court, kids lined up on both ends to participate in shooting drills with the 6-foot-8 veteran and the Spurs Coyote.

They missed often. Barnes used to, as well, as a former Club Kid himself. It’s what has kept him coming back to Boys & Girls Clubs across the country since being drafted to the NBA in 2012.

“I’ve been in their shoes,” Barnes said. “To be able to, all these years later, come back to Boys & Girls Clubs in different markets that I’ve played in and give back, it (makes) me smile.”

Since joining the Golden State Warriors as a rookie, Barnes has made his rounds with the Boys & Girls Club. From 2014 to 2024, the forward served on the board of trustees for the Club in Oakland.

Once he and his wife, Brittany, got married in the summer following Barnes’ first season with the Mavericks, the pair began donating to Clubs in Oakland, Dallas and Sacramento through their community fund.

READ MORE: Barnes’ Veteran Impact Goes Beyond Basketball

Despite being only one season into his tenure with the Spurs, Barnes added both San Antonio and Austin to that list. To him, continuing a long-standing Spurs tradition was of utmost importance.

“The Spurs are synonymous with their community,” Barnes said, “whether it’s Austin or San Antonio. Continuing that tradition of being a Spurs player and giving back is important to me.”

The City of Ames once celebrated “Harrison Barnes Day.”

July 13, 2015 came just under a month after Barnes won his only NBA championship with the Warriors and nine days after he played the role of Grand Marshall for his hometown’s Fourth of July Parade.

But Barnes did plenty more than win to deserve the honor.

Barnes first left Ames in 2010 bound for Chapel Hill, N.C. as a top recruit for then-North Carolina coach Roy Williams’ Tar Heels. The forward was a two-time state champion and the centerpiece of Ames High School’s Little Cyclones along with eventual Spur Doug McDermott.

Back then, visits from Fred Hoiberg were a big deal. Barnes still recalls the moment he first met the Iowa State Cyclones legend, coincidentally at the Story County Boys & Girls Club.

“It’s kind of funny how that all came full circle,” he said.

Barnes made it through the ranks at North Carolina before becoming a top-10 selection for the Warriors. Behind Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Golden State made the playoffs in each of the four seasons he was there and went on to face LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers in The Finals twice.

It paid off the first time; Barnes and the Warriors fell short of a repeat championship in 2016. Still, Ames remained at Barnes’ core. It was where he first picked up basketball.

“That was my first indoor court,” he said. “It was a safe space.”

WATCH: What Options Do Spurs Have with Pick No. 2? (LOS)

Ten years after he left the 65,000-person town, Barnes helped finance a new high school gym for the Little Cyclones, complete with new jerseys. He led the team to a 56-game win streak in his latter two seasons, marking the first 4-A program in the state to go undefeated in consecutive seasons, and surpassed Hoiberg on the team’s all-time points list.

Barnes also made the All-State First Team, earned the Gatorade Player of the Year Honor in 2009-10 and was named Mr. Basketball in Iowa.

Fittingly, Ames High School now features the Harrison Barnes Gymnasium and Court, where Barnes regularly hosts basketball camps. At times, he’ll see kids from the local Boys & Girls Club. Those are his favorite.

“I’m a living example of the happiness and success that our young people can achieve when they’re supported and cared for,” Barnes said. “I wouldn’t be here, not only without the Boys & Girls Club, but without all the people that helped me and poured into me.”

“When you see the success of someone like Harrison, for the kids, it’s: ‘I can do that, too,’” Austin Area Boys & Girls Club CEO Zenae Campbell added. “At the club, we’re able to nurture that … that’s what we want to instill.”

Harrison Barnes wasn’t granted a chance to speak on the side of the NBA he’s become acclimated to several times throughout his career.

With his Spurs inching toward contention, several big-name NBA stars have expressed, even preliminarily, some level of interest in joining Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio. Barnes’ sizable contract puts him on the short list of players to be re-routed.

That was the least of his concerns Wednesday morning.

“Basketball has taken me all over the world,” Barnes said, conversely. “It’s allowed me to live my childhood dreams … (and) to have people to help me get there? That’s what my wife and I aim to do. We want to give back.”

Barnes launched a refurbishment initiative with the Spurs upon being traded to the team in the deal that landed DeMar DeRozan in Sacramento. He started in San Antonio, refurbishing a court at the Guadalupe Community Center in March, before doing the same in Austin with a plan to round out the process later this month at Plaza Mirasierra Spurs in Saltillo, Mexico.

READ MORE: Spurs Exercising Patience Amid Durant Saga

His time spent in Austin was a continuation of the Spurs’ ongoing pursuit of a market expansion to the Texas capital, headlined by an annual pair of games at The University of Texas’ Moody Center.

“There’s a lot of teams that claim to want to meet the fans where they are,” Spurs SVP of Strategic Growth Brandon James said. “We are sort of a living testimony of truly doing that.”

With the Coyote in attendance, Barnes brought the Spurs to Austin. He noticed no difference in support between the parent city and its secondary home.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to play for great franchises and programs in college,” Barnes began, “but the Spurs’ fan base is different. It’s predicated on the history and culture of the team on the court, but also off the court.”

As unique as the fan base is, the Spurs feel similarly toward Barnes.

“I’ve never seen anybody like him,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said of the veteran. “We talk a lot about him being a mentor and a vet … (but we need to talk about) how he carries himself off the court and the way he’s impacted this community and city in such a short time.”

That goes for San Antonio and Austin.

“Harrison,” Spurs CEO R.C. Buford said. “You … since you came into our program, have been such a model for what a great teammate, a great community leader, a great hero (looks like).”

A photo of Barnes waiting for Hoiberg’s autograph still exists at the Story County Boys & Girls Club. Barnes is wearing an old jersey, excited to meet a man he saw as a living legend. In front of several young Spurs fans Wednesday, he became that legend.

Perhaps now Austin’s “Home Club” has something for its walls, too.

“You can see what the club means to him,” Campbell said. “It’s still so real and so important to his upbringing. To have an opportunity to do something he loves, and for that to come to fruition is amazing.”

Texas lawmakers have officially requested that Tesla delay its planned Robotaxi launch in Austin by a few months due to a new law being implemented.

It’s a Godsend for Elon Musk.

As we previously reported, Tesla’s planned Robotaxi launch in Austin, Texas, now “tentatively” scheduled for June 22, is a moving of the goal post for Tesla.

CEO Elon Musk himself has previously described what Tesla plans to launch as “not really self-driving”, but the CEO is using the new strategy as a way to claim a win in autonomous driving after years of missed deadlines and failed promises.

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Since last year, Musk has discussed launching the service in Austin this summer. For the last few months, he had indicated that it would happen in June, with the June 22nd date being officially shared last week.

For Musk to claim his win, Tesla would need to stick to the deadline, which would be a first for Tesla when it comes to its autonomous driving roadmap.

However, Texas lawmakers have just given Tesla an out.

A group of seven Austin-based lawmakers in the Texas Senate and House have signed a letter asking Tesla to delay its launch until September:

As members of the Austin delegation in the Texas Senate and Texas House of Representatives, we are formally requesting that Tesla delay autonomous robotaxi operations until the new law takes effect on September I, 2025. We believe this is in the best interest of both public safety and building public trust in Tesla’s operations. If Tesla opts to proceed with the June 22, 2025, launch date, we request that you respond to this letter with detailed information demonstrating that Tesla will be compliant with the new law upon the launch of driverless operations in Austin.

Texas has had very few regulations affecting autonomous driving, and the new law maintains this status quo. However, it also introduces requirements for following federal guidelines, and the latest version of the bill references SAE autonomous driving levels.

It doesn’t sound like the lawmakers are forcing Tesla to delay the launch for now. They are more politely asking to delay until the new framework is in place.

here’s the full letter from the Texas lawmakers:

Electrek’s Take

This appears to be a Godsend for Tesla and Musk. Even with the significantly reduced scope of the program compared to what Tesla has promised for years, and the fact that Waymo has been doing exactly what Tesla is trying to accomplish for years, it appears that Tesla is having difficulties delivering on that.

As we previously reported, testing without a safety driver has been extremely limited based on sightings, and it appears that Tesla has simply relocated the “safety driver” to the passenger seat with a kill switch for optics.

Now, Tesla can claim that it has to delay the launch to please the regulators rather than because it is not ready.

There’s also NHTSA, which put a deadline for today for Tesla to answer a bunch of questions about its planned Robotaxi launch in Austin. So, that could also play a role.

Now, let’s see if Tesla takes the out or decides to move forward. For everyone’s sake, I hope they take the out.